For the first installment of Subtitle Subversive I take a look at the 2013 Polish film Ida, which won this year’s Academy Award for Best Foreign Language Film. Not particularly subversive I know but hey if you want to pick the movies get your own blog.
The film is set in Poland in 1962 and follows the young woman Anna preparing to take her vows to become a nun. Before she does this her abbess insists that she visit her last remaining relative a hard drinking, chain-smoking Aunt Wanda notorious for her ties to Poland’s communist government. Wanda reals to Anna that her real name is Ida and that she is in fact Jewish. Together the two embark on a journey to find the bodies of Ida’s parents who were murdered during the final year of the Nazi occupation of Poland.
That is the premise. What follows from that premise is something much greater than the sum of its parts. To begin with the acting is stellar. Agata Kulesza’s Wanda is a force as the coarse and despondent Wanda while Agata Trzebuchowska says more by saying nothing than any actress in recent memory. This is a road movie and an odd couple pairing and those elements are certainly put to good use for moments of levity and insight but make no mistake this is a deeply raw piece that uses the pain of Poland’s past to rip out your heart and twist up your insides. The compare and contrast of Nazi occupation and Communist governance leave you reeling knowing that while this tale may be a fiction it is by no means a fantasy.
But what stood out most to me was the feel of the film. The movie is set in post-war Europe sure, so are a lot of films but this film felt like it was made there too. Shot in black and white, edited, with a naturalistic score if you placed this film in a stack of Fellini’s or Truffaut’s works it would feel natural, like it belonged. Certainly you would be able to tell that it came from another director but I would guess even the most ardent cinephile would not be able to tell that it came from another era.
I found Ida to be a fantastically compelling piece that had everything I look for in a film and I strongly encourage you to give it a watch.
‘Till next time this has been the Eclectic Eccentric with Subtitle Subversive.